Steam and new computer for TATW

[GondorCaptain]

Are there disadvantages to installing TATW to the Steam version of Kingdoms? I have the CD game, and I read somewhere on the forum there are ways to play with Steam, but it seemed quite complicated.

Also, I'm investing in a new gaming laptop. My desktop can take care of my work/school needs. I'm hoping for a laptop that can play games like Crysis 2, Empire, Napoleon, Shogun2, DoW II: Retribution, Portal 2, and of course TATW on the highest(or as high as possible) graphics settings without lag or framerate issues.

My price cap is $2000. I've asked this question on Yahoo answers, and received terrible and useless feedback. I hope the computer geniuses here can help me out a bit more.

My priorities are: Speed, performance, RAM, graphics, durability, portability, and resistance/immunity to malware. I suppose the last one is up to me, but certain systems are built to better deter registry malware than others.

I don't care about: storage space(I only play 3~5 games at a time), screen size, or anything not related to optimal gaming performace like having windows media or office installed.

Right now I'm learning towards the alienware 11x; after my customizations it's a little over $1000. But since this is a large investment I was hoping to get some feedback on what type of laptop I should purchase to satisfy my TATW addiction, especially once 3.0 comes out with all those beautiful custom settlements

[irishron]

You can do it through Steam. Add the game to your non-Steam games in Steam. Past that I don't know how it works.

Medieval2, ancient by today's game standards, for good play on 1280 x 1024 resolution, mine, plan on 3GHz Athlon or Intel 2-core or 4-core, depending on price, 4gb ram, dedicated graphics card with 512mb vram dedicated, not shared, 300gb hdd, and you should be good.

I have not looked at the mx11 so I have no opinion.